Disney Men In Black
by RetroWriter2012
Summary: From the world of the Disney Ghostbusters comes this new crossover tale that centers on the Men In Black and their mission to prevent an intergalactic war brought on by an alien terrorist organization.
1. The Hunt for Doctor Jookiba

**Chapter One: The Hunt for Doctor Jookiba**

Location: Quelte Quan – Near the Galactic Center  
Year: 2004

The planet of Quelte Quan loomed near the brightest and most massive star in the galaxy it inhabited. One side of the planet was illuminated by the bright star; and, due to the fact that the planet never rotated, that side of it always remained in daylight. The other part of Quelte Quan – the dark side – was where the combined forces of the Galactic Federation and M.I.B. (codenamed "Men In Black") intended to find Kweltikwan scientist Jumba Jookiba. The Federation and the M.I.B. simultaneously received word from Dr. Jacques von Hämsterviel, an associate of Jookiba's, about some "illegal experimentation" that the scientist had been handling.

M.I.B. Agents Ar (formerly Renee Jadek), Em (formerly Michelle Hanson), and Ess (former name unknown) were personally assigned by Senior M.I.B. Agent Cobra Bubbles to work with Captain Gantu of the Federation on the matter. The four landed on the surface of Quelte Quan in Gantu's enormous ship, which fit his giant, hulking size and his ego. Because Quelte Quan had a non-breathable atmosphere – it was described as having the scent of "every foul-smelling thing in the universe" – Ar, Em, and Ess were forced to don M.I.B.-specialized spacesuits that were black just like their uniforms; Gantu, on the other hand, opted to "tough out" Quelte Quan's foul atmosphere, keeping his focus squarely on arresting Jookiba.

The surface of Quelte Quan was entirely covered in glowing orange snow with more of it falling from the yellow clouds that obscured the night sky; it served as the only liable source of light to guide their way. While trekking across the snowy plains, Ar picked up some of the glowing snow and crumpled in her left gloved hand. "So what happens when we eat the _orange_ snow?"

"Don't." Ess grimly instructed her, his British-sounding accent heightening the sternness. Ess was always this way; as long as Ar and Em knew him, he never once smiled and never once removed his shades, even while wearing the helmet of his spacesuit. He was a man of mystery – all Ar and Em had on him was his race (supposedly African American), his age (supposedly in his late-twenties), and his species (human…supposedly).

"Only jokin', dude." Ar said while brushing off the bits of snow on her hand.

"This mission is _not_ a joke, Agent!" Gantu bellowed at her. "Jumba Jookiba is involved in something that could endanger the entire galaxy! We need to be vigilant!"

Ar mocked a salute to the oversized shark (or whale) humanoid. "Aye-aye, Captain Jaws!"

"It's _Gantu_!" He furiously grumbled.

As the group continued along the snowy plain, Em cautiously whispered to Ar, "Mind _not_ pissing off the hard-assed eight-foot alien?"

Ar scoffed at Em's warning. "He's not gonna do anything. M.I.B.'s alliance with the Federation pretty much makes us family. Pissin' off this big lug is like pissin' off a big baby brother."

"There it is."

They all stopped as soon as they heard Ess and saw him pointing in the distance to a large dome-shaped facility that oddly resembled Jumba Jookiba's head with a front door shaped like his nose and lit windows on opposite sides that matched his four eyes. Gantu and the three M.I.B. agents readied their guns while advancing upon the dome that undoubtedly belonged to Jookiba himself. Positioning themselves from the opposite sides of the front door, they could hear Jumba talking to someone inside his domain.

"You will be greatest experiment ever!" Jumba exclaimed in his accented voice. "You will strike fear in the hearts of many, show no mercy to those standing in your way, and – most important of all – you will never wash hands!"

Ar scrunched her face in reaction to Jumba's "conversation" inside the facility. "Who the hell is he talking to?"

Gantu shushed her before anyone could have a chance to guess. He made a few gestures with his massive hands that reminded Ar of a tactical Navy seal. She didn't have a clue what he was telling them, so she just went with a guess. She implanted a round electronic device with a bright yellow keypad of alien numbers onto the center of the door. Entering a seven-digit code into the device, Ar watched with her partner and Gantu as the device sent out a static discharge between it and the door and forced it to open within a mere second.

The M.I.B. agents and Gantu rushed right inside, aiming their guns at the bulbous back of Jumba Jookiba. It was Ess who made the arrest officially by stating, "Jumba Jookiba. By order of the Galactic Federation, we are placing you under arrest for violation of Section 15026 – illegal genetic engineering experimentation."

"So turn your gigantic swollen behind around and put your hands on your head." Ar firmly added.

Donned in his oversized lab coat, Jumba made a slow turn away from his worktable, which was cluttered with food wrappers, random alien gizmos, and small glass canisters that contained some sort of pink fluid. "Just for record," Jumba said upon facing the officials with his hands on his head, "my behind is _not_ 'gigantic' or 'swollen.' It's merely big-boned."

"Who were you talking to a second ago?"

"Ar," Em whispered. "Now's not the time."

Jumba grinned and chuckled. "You _really_ want to know, Agent?"

"Yeah, I do." Ar said in a demanding tone.

"No, she doesn't." Em uttered, holstering her gun while approaching Jumba with a set of titanium handcuffs. "Just shut up while we take you to Turo. You can do all your talking there while you're…" As she stepped in behind Jumba, her pale blue eyes grew wide upon seeing the most bizarre creature standing on Jookiba's worktable. It was small and slender with blue fur, four arms, big black eyes, sharp claws and teeth, rabbit/bat-like ears, a pair of antennae on its head, and three porcupine-like spines on its back. This was evidently Jumba's new creation.

The experiment growled viciously at Em before leaping off from the worktable and clasping onto the front of her helmet. She shrieked in horror and repulsion as the creature bit into the helmet's protective glass, slobbering all over it. The glass began to crack and Em saw the impending doom, urging her to call the others for assistance. Ar fired a few concerned blasts from her De-Atomizer at the experiment while making sure not to hit Em. Despite none of the blasts hitting the creature, it managed to get itself detached from Em's helmet, opting instead to cling onto Ar.

"Oh, crap! It's on _me_ now!" She cried, trying to shake the blue-furred creature off her by hopping around the room. Her attempts were useless though as the experiment continued crawling all over her until it stopped at her lower back. At first, she was clueless as to why it had stopped there, but then she felt a sharp sting come right over her buttocks. Ar howled in agony, dropping her De-Atomizer and clasping at her rear-end. "That nasty little monster just took a bite out of my butt!"

The experiment gave an odd, wicked laugh over its deed before leaping off of the injured MIB agent and crawling across the floor. It crawled right onto a small, round, metal platform and suddenly found itself immobilized by the steel restraints that had sprouted from the platform and shackled its hands and feet. The creature angrily snarled and spat until a glass dome rose from the platform and contained it, deafening its growls and protecting everyone from its flying mucus.

"You monstrosity!" Gantu exclaimed, approaching the containment device that was used on the uncontrollable creature and picking it up. His large hands dwarfed both the device and the angry, snarling creature inside. "You won't cause any more trouble from in there!"

Jumba watched as his creation struggled in the containment while being restrained himself by Ess. "Be careful with Experiment 626!"

Ess noted the context in the name of Jumba's creation. "Experiment 626? There are six hundred and twenty-five more?"

"Erm, n-no," answered an extremely reserved Jumba. "The '626' is merely a…sign of affection."

"I've got news for you, dude – _this_ is no sign of affection!" Ar turned and showed the section of her spacesuit that Experiment 626 bit into. As expected, there was small hole in the butt area of the suit, exposing Ar's flesh with the bright red bite mark over her peach skin. "It doesn't look infected, does it?"

Em could barely see anything through her cracked, saliva-drenched helmet. She tried to analyze the bite mark on her fellow agent's butt, but she could only make out a blur. "I'm sure it doesn't look too bad," she guaranteed.

"There are medics back at the Galactic Federation Headquarters that will treat your wound, Agent Ar." Gantu said. "In the meantime, let's get that idiot scientist and this abomination back so they can stand trial."

Ar glared at the four-eyed alien scientist. "I hope they throw the book at you, Jookiba!"

"Why would they throw books at me?" A baffled Jumba inquired. "Haven't I already been punished enough?"

Location: New York City – Earth (Milky Way Galaxy)  
Time: 14 Days Later

Chrissy Bernal woke up with a loud yet brief shriek. She had been sweating heavily, drenching both her pillow and her long red hair. Her shriek was enough to wake her husband, Joey, who turned to check on her. "Chrissy! You O.K., hon?"

Chrissy's bright blue eyes darted quickly from left to right, as if searching for some familiarity to bring her back to reality. Once she had seen Joey's concerned face looking directly at her, a wave of calmness swept over her. Her left hand went to her sweaty forehead while she swallowed hard. "Had the _worst_ nightmare ever," she told her husband. "I was…I think I was on another planet."

Joey was intrigued. "Really?"

"Yeah," she said with a smile, feeling relieved over being back to the real world. "But that wasn't even the weirdest part. I wasn't even _me_, but I could still _see_ me…like I was talking to me, but as another person."

"How was the 'other you' dressed?" Joey asked.

She gawked at him in irritation. "Seriously?"

"No, really. In dreams like that, we see ourselves differently than how we normally do."

"Like butt-naked?"

Joey's eyebrows rose curiously. "_Were_ you naked?"

"_NO!_"

"Okay, okay."

"Forget it."

"No, really, I'm sorry. Just tell me…"

"I have to get ready for work anyway." She glanced at the alarm clock on her side of the bed; the time digitally read 6:09 on it. Chrissy sat up and planted her bare feet upon the smooth carpet, another pleasing sign of reality to her. If her husband could only know how bizarre her dream was, he could actually understand why it was so important for her to know that it _was_ all a dream. One last sign sealed the deal for her: the bracelet that her daughters, Sierra and Sienna, gave her for Mother's Day a couple of years ago.

The bracelet was cupped tightly upon her right wrist; it was made of metal and had several sparkling diamonds imprinted on it, and it gave off a stunning glow when worn under the sunlight. Chrissy had not once removed it from her wrist since the girls gave it to her; she cherished it that much. It reminded her each and every day how blessed she was to have such a perfect family – just her, Joey, and the girls living in their wonderful home in Queens.

"Mom?"

A young, angelic voice spoke out from the bedroom door, and Chrissy saw Sierra's head poking in; a short distance below was the head of her twin sister, Sienna, also poking in. Chrissy smiled as soon as she saw them. "What're you girls doing up this early?"

"We heard you scream." Sierra said in concern.

"Really loud." Sienna added, sounding not quite as concerned as her twin sister.

Chrissy felt embarrassed and guilty for being the reason behind the girls' early wake-up on a Saturday morning. "Oh, I'm so sorry, girls." But she was also thankful to see them there after the dream she had. "C'mere." She gestured for them to come to her. As soon as they were in close range, she took her arms around them and gave them warm hugs. "I promise that everything is just fine. Just had a bad dream, that's all."

"What happened?" Sierra asked.

"Were you naked?" Sienna queried.

Chrissy sighed. _What is it with this family and nudity?_

"It's nothing – just a silly dream." Chrissy said. "But I tell you what. When I get back from work, maybe I'll spill all the juicy details with you. Deal?" The girls nodded in agreement. "Cool. Now go wash up. I've got to get ready for work."

The girls departed from the bedroom on their mother's command. Joey himself got up from bed and made his way to the door. "I'm gonna cook us up some breakfast."

"Thanks, babe." Chrissy acknowledged as he left. She looked to the dresser beside the bed and pulled out the first drawer, reaching to retrieve her police badge. She traced her right thumb over its shiny gold design that included the words "New York Police Department" in small print. She then realized that the day marked her eighth anniversary on the force. She looked forward to what the anniversary held for her, especially since she had been recently partnered with a young officer by the name of James Darrell Edwards III. With those thoughts in mind, she snickered and said to herself, "Let's do it."


	2. The Day That Changed Everything

**Chapter Two: The Day That Changed Everything**

James Darrell Edwards III sat in the passenger seat of an Infiniti QX56 that belonged to his recently assigned partner, Chrissy Bernal. Both Edwards and the Infiniti waited in the parking garage of the precinct. The radio was tuned to a station that played R&B music Edwards couldn't help but nod his head to. As he waited for Chrissy, he thought on how he was assigned to her, first meeting her when he was still a rookie. There was an immense infatuation he had about her, but he knew he had no chance with her being married. Their partnership was strictly professional, which he reminded himself during the many times he tried to avoid ogling her when she wasn't noticing.

His latest test of willpower came just as Chrissy finally arrived in the garage. Edwards saw her walking towards the Infiniti in a tight, long-sleeve flower shirt with equally tight jeans and brown boots – her NYPD police badge clipped to her left on the waist of her beltless pants. _Damn_, Edwards thought as his eyes watched her busty figure sway in such an erotic motion that he knew she didn't do on purpose. It practically made him sweat, despite the car's A/C turned on. And it only got much worse the moment Chrissy dropped her keys and bent over to pick them up – her rear facing Edwards and the Infiniti.

Edwards was caught in a trance for nearly the entire five seconds it took Chrissy to retrieve her keys. He shook himself out of it just in time as Bernal made it to the car and got in. With a smile, she looked to Edwards as she buckled herself in and softly said, "Mornin', partner."

"Y-Yeah." Edwards uttered in a shaky voice, clearing his throat to get rid of it.

She detected the anxiety in his voice and her smile grew. "Your first homicide?"

"First? Naw, girl. I've done, like, _hundreds_ of homicides in my time." He then realized the context of his words and corrected himself: "Not that I've _done_ homicides. I've just, like…"

"I know, Jay."

Edwards smirked. "Jay?"

It wasn't until he repeated what she called him did Chrissy catch herself on the mistake. "Sorry. I meant to say 'James.' Where did I get 'Jay' from?"

Edwards shrugged. "Stayed up watching _Leno_ last night?"

Chrissy chuckled as she started the car and drove out of the garage. Nearly half an hour later, she and Edwards arrived in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where their homicide case was reported from. "Our suspect left the crime scene in a bright blue van," she informed Edwards.

"Any license plate number to identify the van?"

Bernal shook her head. "None. Just a—"

_SCREECH!_

From their left, a bright blue van sped in between traffic, running into several cars on the street and forcing them to crash into each other.

"Looks like we don't need no license number." Edwards said.

Chrissy gave chase for the speeding van. She made a maneuver to catch up to it that terrified Edwards – making a hard right into the lanes of oncoming traffic. She craftily weaved around the vehicles moving in the opposite direction of theirs, each one of them honking frantically. Once she saw that they were moving in sync with the van, which managed to force its way through the vehicles in the adjacent lanes, Chrissy made a hard left and bumped into the suspect vehicle. Both cars went off the road and crashed through Chinatown streets, urging many pedestrians to duck for cover.

While in close proximity of the van, Chrissy could see the passengers inside: two women with jet black hair, pale white complexions, and black lips – both wearing dark gray hoodies and sunshades. Chrissy wasn't sure if the paleness and black lips of these women were due to lack of sunlight or makeup brought on by an enthusiasm to Goth culture; it was certainly out of the ordinary. Her attention on these details was cut short as soon as both vehicles came to a crashing halt in a Chinese restaurant.

Stumbling out of their van from the driver's side, the bizarre female suspects dashed away from the wreckage and out to the street. They pushed aside several bystanders in the way of their hasty escape. It bought Bernal and Edwards enough time to climb out of their wrecked Infiniti from the passenger side and give chase on foot. The overcrowded street corners quickly turned in favor of the suspects when the officers realized their tactic.

"Damn!" Edwards exclaimed. "They split!"

"Then let's do the same." Chrissy instructed. "You take left, I take right."

Once they were in agreement to this plan, they put it into action. Chrissy made her way through the crowd, keeping a close eye on one of the two pale-skinned women. Among a large group that consisted mostly of oriental citizens, it was not hard for Chrissy to spot her target…yet it wasn't hard for the suspect to do the same. As soon as they spotted each other across the crowd, Chrissy's suspect made for a nearby twenty-story apartment complex, climbing to the rooftop via fire escape. Bernal rushed her way through the crowd, excusing herself as much as she could while ushering herself in between many individuals. She reached the fire escape and followed the woman, who was already halfway up.

The speed this bizarre-looking woman moved in amazed Chrissy, but not as much as that of her own. Determined not to let this woman escape, Chrissy climbed up the fire escape with next to little effort. She jumped up the steps rather than take them one-by-one, choosing not to waste any time. Both Bernal and the suspect reached the rooftop nearly simultaneously, and the pursing detective tackled her prey down. However, the pale-skinned woman was quick to recover, springing back to her feet as Chrissy did and engaging in fierce combat with her.

The woman was incredibly fast, strong, and agile, displaying acrobatic and martial art skills that kept Chrissy quick on her toes. She managed to get a few licks in – one in the right side of her face, one in her left thigh, and one in the chest, connecting with her left breast (which stun like hell). Just when it seemed matters were about to get more complicated, Chrissy drew her semi, which she kept holstered in the back of her jeans, and fired one round into her opponent's torso.

The pale-skinned woman staggered, clutching her wound as glowing _green_ blood spout out through her white fingers. Chrissy's eyes widened with shock. Was this woman wearing some type of gag body armor? Was someone pulling a practical joke on her?

"What are you?" Chrissy asked.

The bizarre woman chuckled as she removed her sunshades and revealed her eyes – completely black organs of vision with the exception of tiny fuchsia dots at the center (her "pupils"). She frowned and grinned whilst addressing the baffled Chrissy: "Your actions will cost this planet _dearly_, pathetic Earth skank!"

Even more flummoxed by her words, Chrissy was so lost on figuring out the nature behind this woman's anatomy that she barely realized what she was in the process of doing. Edging dangerously close to the ends of the rooftop, the woman ultimately made a move that took Chrissy by complete surprise: she willingly threw herself off, allowing her body to violently smack onto the concrete of the street corner below and kill herself in the process. Chrissy gazed over the edge and saw where she landed – a puddle of her green blood developing from beneath the cracked skull.

_What just happened here?_

* * *

Chrissy sat for so long on the hard metal chair in the interrogation room that her butt was on the verge of going numb (if it hadn't already). Just seconds ago, the captain had grilled her on the death of the homicide suspect that she was supposed to bring in _alive_. She now found _herself_ suspected in the death. Her only ally in defense of her case was Edwards, who believed that she _didn't_ kill the suspect. The disagreement between him and the captain resulted in the screaming match they currently had outside the room. Chrissy could hear every word of it – the captain wanted to suspend her and Edwards threatened to quit if he did.

There was also the matter of the _other_ suspect – the one still alive and somewhere out in the city, a result of Edwards' failure to capture her. So it wasn't just Chrissy's job on the line, but her partner's as well. It was a day filled with disaster and all she wanted to do was go back home to her husband and daughters, putting the stress of her job all behind her.

In the midst of her daydreaming of a pleasant Saturday afternoon with her family, Chrissy suddenly noticed how the shouting between Edwards and the captain had ended abruptly. She also detected a flash of light from the corner of her right eye that prompted her to curiously turn around and see, through the window looking out of the room, two Caucasian women – a blonde and a redhead – in black attire, standing in front of the captain, whose face registered blankness. Edwards was nowhere to be seen, much to Chrissy's immediate confusion.

While the blonde dealt with the captain, the redhead entered the interrogation room. As she had, Chrissy could see that she had on black suit and tie, complete with a black miniskirt and leggings that she wore with it. To Chrissy, she looked to be from the government. _How serious __is__ this case?_

Taking off the pair of sunglasses she wore indoors (a trait that was rather awkward to Chrissy), the redhead greeted her with a smile and a very excitable attitude as she sat across from her at the interrogation table. "What's happenin'! Man! You still lookin' good after all these years! You've been workin' out?"

Chrissy gawked at her with a look of perplexity. "Excuse me?"

"It's just that you look so freakin' pumped, girl." The redhead remarked. "I mean, not just in arms, but in…" She gestured her hand around her chest, unable to find the courage to say the word "breasts" aloud.

She addressed the detective as if she had known her for her entire life, and it bemused Chrissy to no end. "I-I'm sorry. _Who_ are you?"

The redhead giggled. "You haven't a clue who I am, do you?" Chrissy shook her head in reply. "That's alright. You will soon."

"Who are you?" Chrissy repeated her question with more interest.

"A friend who's here to help." Her demeanor then switched, becoming more business-centered. "The woman you chased down in Chinatown…what did she look like? Did she have _really_ pale skin? Bleed _green _blood?"

Chrissy frowned upon the accuracy. "Yes." She could see how displeased the redheaded agent was with her answer. "What is this all about? _What_ was she?"

The agent shook her head. "Can't say. You're not ready to know just yet."

This reply confused Chrissy. Before she could've asked more on the topic, the other agent – the blonde donned in a black sleeveless top with black combat pants and boots – entered. "I've got us access to the morgue," she informed.

The redhead approvingly nodded with a smile. "Awesome." She then look to Chrissy and added, "If you really want to know what's going on, come with us."

* * *

Chrissy followed the two female agents to the morgue, where another black-suited agent – this one being a dark-skinned male wearing pants and a pair of sunglasses that he did not remove as soon as the three women arrived. He had waited for them while standing beside the dead body of the pale-skinned suspect. The body had already been dissected by the medical examiner, cut open at the torso to reveal an assortment of organs that Chrissy noticed to be out of the ordinary – mostly in the fact that they were all _green_, out of place, and misshaped.

"I had to neuralyze Dr. Weaver once she found out." The dark-skinned agent informed, speaking with an accent that Chrissy couldn't rightly determine the origin of, although she had to guess perhaps British.

"N-Neuralyze?" Chrissy repeated the word he uttered in his update. "What does that mean?"

"We'll explain later. Let's focus on the body for now." The redheaded agent remarked. "What did you find out, Ess?"

Chrissy reacted to the name that the dark-skinned agent was addressed by – nothing more than a letter and not a _full_ name. Was it some sort of protocol between these people, so as not to expose their real identities? There was so much she had yet to learn of them, in addition to the bizarre corpse in front of them.

"She's definitely a Venusian – no denying that." Ess revealed in the case of the dead suspect lying on the examination table. "Her name was Meg Murrher."

The blonde agent looked very uncomfortable. "A dead Venusian on Earth soil? You know what this mean, right?"

The redheaded agent nodded. "Could provoke a war from the Venusians. It'll be easy for them to declare it, with the peace treaty expiring in a few days. There's gotta be something we can do to prevent it."

"A new treaty has to be signed," the blonde agent suggested, "but it can only be done through the presence of the Royal Peacekeepers of Bernallic V."

As if on cue, the redheaded agent then turned to Chrissy, smiling. "This is where _you_ come in."

For the entire conversation, Chrissy had been just a simple observer. She didn't have any idea what the three agents were discussing on the matter of the pale-skinned woman she watched commit suicide. The things that they mentioned made it all sound like something out of a sci-fi movie.

"What have I got to do with any of this?" She questioned, clearly taken by surprise from the way she was brought into the unusual situation.

Agent Ess stared long and hard at her as he clarified for her, "The royal peacekeepers are your daughters, Sienna and Sierra."


	3. The Truth Comes Out

**Chapter Three: The Truth Comes Out**

Mark "Captain D" Dickens could not have been any more thrilled to have his crew and their voyage across the North Pacific Ocean to be the focus of a new reality show called _Deadliest Catch_. There was a two-person television crew with them on their decades-old fishing vessel, named "Atlas." They had been sailing together for nearly a couple of weeks. So far, things had moved pretty slowly for the crew – not a single crab had been caught, and there wasn't much action on the boat to entice the TV crew that filmed them almost 24/7. Dickens felt embarrassed; his first chance at fame, and it was beginning to dwindle.

On the twelfth day out at sea, Dickens sat in the wheelhouse and talked out his frustrations to the camera, knowing that was what reality show stars normally did at times of stress. "I ain't sure why these lil' bastards aren't bitin' out here. I've been doing this for twenty years, and I've never had not a single empty catch for twelve straight days." In his irritation, he took off his weathered green cap (with his business logo stitched on it) and slammed it against the control console, spouting out a certain expletive in the process. He was quick to apologize to the TV crew for it. "Sorry."

"It's fine. We edit it out in post." The cameraman informed.

Dickens let out a heavy sigh. He rubbed a few of the fingers from the hand he held his cap in through his balding salt-and-pepper hair before placing the cap back over it. "Be honest with me on somethin'. If this shit goes on for another day, you're gonna find another crew, ain't ya?"

The TV crewmen looked to each other – the skepticism of their faces evident in the eyes of Dickens. But the boat captain didn't have much time to ponder on the future of his fame when the ship suddenly and violently shook. The bodies of Dickens and the crew jerked forward. Dickens' hand was injured as it slammed against the edge of the console.

"Dammit! What the hell!"

He rushed out of the wheelhouse with the TV crew and onto the main deck, where his fallen crew began to pick themselves back up. Dickens saw the cause of all the shaking: the fishing dredge had snagged something big enough to rock the boat. The boat captain had a smile on his face as big as a kid in a candy store; finally, they had their big catch. He imagined the dredger to be filled with a hefty assortment of crabs and possibly other sea life along with them. His mouth watered at the thought of the possibility.

"Reel them bastards in!"

The crew did as commanded, but their efforts started to make the boat capsize. As much as Dickens wanted to claim the prize, it wasn't worth the risk of his crew or their vessel. The TV crewmen captured the moment on camera, but even they were unsettled by the dramatic action that they had become involuntarily part of.

"Cut the reel! CUT THE DAMN REEL!"

Dickens' orders turned more frantic as more ocean water flooded onto the ship. Unfortunately, it was too late. The _Atlas_ and its entire crew (including those from the network) were pulled down to the depths of the Pacific shortly after turning over completely – the massive weight of the boat crushing and drowning all men instantly. There remained no trace of the fishing vessel until just a video camera survived by bobbing through the surface and floating along with the current.

* * *

As thankful as Chrissy was to be off the hook on the death of the pale-skinned suspect, she still felt like she was involved in some sort of conspiracy with her new black-suited "friends," who she still hadn't figured on which agency they worked for. All she had on them were names (a term that was used loosely in consideration of theirs) – Ar (the spunky redhead), Ess (the dark-skinned man with the irremovable sunshades and hardnosed personality), and Em (the blonde who dressed tough but acted very gentle).

After inspecting the corpse of the suspect back at the precinct, Chrissy rode with them back to her apartment in their black 1987 Ford LTD Crown Victoria – a car that was a little _too_ "classic" for her taste. Nevertheless, it was a comfortable and well-kept vehicle, which was to be expected from government agents (if they _were_ from the government). She couldn't stop thinking of her poor Infiniti, which suffered greatly from the chase earlier that day.

"First thing I need to do when we get to my place is call up the shop about my car." Chrissy said, breaking the silence that had fallen within the vehicle for twenty minutes straight. "I take my daughters to school in that car."

Ar, who shared the backseat with Chrissy, snickered. "Hate to break it to ya, but your car is being decommissioned."

"What?" Chrissy glanced at her with surprise and anger filling her eyes. "I had _tons_ more payments on that thing!"

"Well, after today, you won't be needin' it anymore." Ar indicated.

"O.K. Enough with all the secrecy. What is goin' on here?" Chrissy said in a demanding tone. "What's all this crap about my daughters being 'royal peacekeepers'? I mean, they're just fourteen years old, and you talk about them like they're from another world."

"Your daughters are actually _much_ older than fourteen, Chrissy." Em revealed.

Chrissy's ears burnt with suspicion from her statement. "I think I'd know how old my daughters are. How old do _you_ think they are?"

Em glanced back at her, grinning. "Older than the universe itself."

The muddled detective couldn't come up with a proper, sane response to that answer of Em's. It was one thing to speak of the plausibility of aliens on the case of the dead pale-skinned suspect…but her daughters? What kind of business were these suits involved with?

* * *

Chrissy thanked God that they arrived back at the apartment before Sierra and Sienna returned from Sierra's singing audition. This whole "royal peacekeepers" B.S. was hard enough for her to swallow; she didn't need her girls to be fed these lies and believe it all to be true. _They're only fourteen_, Chrissy mentally repeated the fact she stated earlier to Ess, Ar, and Em during their car ride. _The last thing they need to hear is that they're royalty – Sienna already __acts__ enough like she is!_

As soon as Chrissy got the door to her apartment open, she expected them to have the whole apartment to themselves. However, upon walking in, she was less than pleased to find Joey still there. "Hey, hon," he said with that warm smile that often put her at ease, but not exactly at _this_ time. "How was your…?" He paused in his greeting just as he took notice in the three black-suited strangers accompanying her. His demeanor quickly changed – that warm smile transformed into a deadly serious frown that Chrissy wasn't used to seeing from her husband. And what he said next took her _completely_ by surprise: "Is it time?"

Ess was the only one of the three agents to respond with a nod.

Chrissy looked back and forth between Joey and Ess, realizing there was already an acquaintance between the two men. "Hold up! Time for _what_?"

Seeing how agitated she was becoming, Joey quickly decided to speak up. "Hon, just listen for a sec. I can explain."

"No!" Chrissy shouted. "J-Just answer me one thing: do you know them?"

"I can't sa—"

"_DO YOU KNOW THEM?_"

Knowing that there was no talking around her, Joey nodded and said, "Yes, I know them."

Chrissy could barely stand, being so staggered and baffled over this. "H-How?"

"I am sorry. I am _really_ sorry. But I am _not_ your husband. We've never been legitimately married and the girls _aren't_ our daughters."

Chrissy felt as if she was going to throw up, listening to all of this from the man she entrusted her life with. Ar and Em could see how it was all affecting her and attempted to stop the conversation, but the ever-so-commanding Ess shook his head for them _not_ to, letting Joey continue to tell Chrissy what she needed to hear.

"I-If…If you're not my hu…my husband…then w-who are you?" Chrissy managed to ask.

"I'm an Arquilian officer hired by the Bernallic V government to watch over Sierra and Sienna." Joey answered with a straightforwardness that didn't settle with Chrissy – it was like all of this was protocol to him. "They are in hiding from a league of intergalactic assassins that want to end their peace treaties and bring war across millions of galaxies. Both you and I have acted as Sienna and Sierra's parents when we are actually their guardians. The girls were _never_ our _real_ daughters."

"Stop saying that!" Chrissy furiously yelled. "Don't _ever_ tell me that!"

"It's the truth." Joey said. "I'm truly sor—"

The apology was abruptly cut off by an unexpected slap across his face, delivered by Chrissy. Ar, Em, and even Ess were surprised by the sudden gesture, hardly catching it as it happened due to the uncanny swiftness in Chrissy's movement. The slap connected more with the right side of Joey's head, striking at his earlobe. This set off a chain reaction of events that caught Chrissy off guard. First, a series of steam shot out from the side of Joey's face that Chrissy slapped; then, as he turned back to Chrissy, Joey's face turned expressionless and was _detached from the rest of his head_; finally, what was supposed to have been his face opened like a hatch to reveal something that absolutely horrified Chrissy: **a tiny alien with a small, humanoid body that was complete with a large head and eyes, sitting in the cockpit of the exosuit that he had been operating**.

The tiny alien looked ashamed and almost embarrassed. "Well…now you see me as the Arquilian I _truly_ am." He spoke with Joey's exact voice, which unsettled Chrissy more than she already was. "I'm so sorry, Chrissy."

Chrissy stood totally speechless; her body was as stiff as a board. Clearly, this was the biggest shocker of the day – not finding out her daughters were royal peacekeepers or coming across secret agents – but discovering the man she believed to be her husband was not even remotely human. Taking this all in proved to be so taxing that she fainted right there and then, her body making a loud _thud_ as it hit the floor and causing some porcelain figures in a nearby cabinet to rattle.

Ar shook her head over this entire situation, shooting one particular disapproved look to Joey, the Arquilian. "You guys couldn't have put those switches in a less-specific area?"

* * *

_Come on, come on  
Move a little closer  
Come on, come on  
I want to hear you whisper  
Come on, come on  
Settle down inside my love_

_Come on, come on  
Jump a little higher  
Come on, come on  
If you feel a little lighter  
Come on, come on  
We were once upon a time in love_

_We're accidentally in love_

Sierra's voice was naturally harmonious and angelic in the studio hall she auditioned in before a judge representing _Radio Disney_. It was the audition she had been practicing months for – to perform on a special radio broadcast in a few days for a contest in which the winner was rewarded a trip for four to Kauai, Hawaii. Being only a couple of blocks from their apartment, Sierra and her twin sister strolled to the studio hall that afternoon with her guitar case at her side. She was nervous but confident of her success, encouraged by Chrissy and Joey to go for it.

The judge was left in tears following the performance and gave Sierra the standing ovation she deserved. "Bravo," said the judge (a tall, curvy young woman with bright red hair named "Marla," according to her nametag) in her southern accent. "You are beautiful, sweetheart. Certainly what we're looking for in our upcoming show."

Sierra smiled, holding in the urge to go nuts in front of the official. "Thanks, Miss Martin."

Sienna, who sat nearby and watched the audition as it took place, saw Marla walk up to Sierra and place her hands lovingly on her shoulders. Marla stood at a height that certainly dwarfed Sierra – which (coming from Sienna) was quite astounding to look at. "Thank you for coming out here. You'll definitely hear from us soon."

Sierra's smile grew. "O.K. Thank you, Miss Martin."

"Call me 'Marla,' hon." The southern judge requested with a wink and a smile that she left the two girls with on her way out of the hall.

As soon as Marla was away, Sierra squealed with immense delight. "I did it! I did it! I made it through!"

"Yeah, quite a shocker." Sienna sarcastically said while her twin sister went to the steel chair beside Sienna's, where her guitar case sat idly, and packed away her most prized possession – her acoustic guitar.

In response to her sister's sarcasm, Sierra smiled and said, "Don't be jealous that I was the one born with exquisite vocal chords."

"Whatever. You _wish_ you had _my_ skills."

Sierra snickered. "And what skills might those be?"

"Cooking, cheerleading, and whipping your butt at _Street Fighter_."

"Oh, so it's like that? Well, when we get home, I'm gonna—"

Sierra ceased her playful banter as soon as she and Sienna noticed someone entering the studio hall. At first, they believed it to be Marla, returning for something she'd forgotten on her way out. But this was an entirely different woman – one who the sisters recognized. She had a pale complexion and black hair and wore a leather jacket zipped midway to provide cleavage for her large ghostly white breasts, in addition to black leggings and boots. The nature of her complexion alone would've frightened average teenage girls, but Sierra and Sienna recognized _what_ she was immediately.

"Venusian." Sienna muttered.

"Joie." Sierra identified her by name once she saw the woman's face.

Joie grinned. "So you _do_ remember me. That's sweet." From the right pocket of her leather jacket, she retrieved an alien handgun that Sierra and Sienna discovered to be a Reverberating Carbonizer, which she aimed directly at them. "Let's cut to the chase: unless you two princesses come with me right now, I'm gonna shoot ya'll with this."

The sisters grew tense but remained resilient. "You won't shoot us," said Sierra. "The treaty hasn't expired yet, and your superiors will be pretty mad at you if you spill blood on Earth soil."

"Especially _royal_ Bernallic blood." Sienna emphasized through a shaky voice.

"Blood has already been spilled." Joie said. "But I ain't frettin' about no damn peace treaty."

Sierra and Sienna shared a quick suspicious glance to each other. "Then why are you standing here pointing a gun at us?" Sienna questioned.

"The Coalition of Enforcers has quite a bounty on your lil' heads and I'm cashin' in." A wicked smile manifested on the Venusian's pale face. "So smile, ladies. You're goin' to Hawaii."


	4. One Problem Too Many

**Chapter Four: One Problem Too Many**

It took much effort from Em, Ar, and Joey (whose "face" from his human exosuit was still open) to pick Chrissy's unconscious body off the floor and lay it down on the living room couch. "She's a lot heavier than she looks," Ar commented at one point. Ess, in the meantime, had focused on contacting Cobra Bubbles, Chief of the M.I.B., on his two-way viewer-communicator – a small, oval-shaped device with a high-definition screen that projected the face of the contact. Once Ess managed to reach Bubbles, the M.I.B. chief's hulking, intimidating face appeared on the screen. With the equally strict Cobra known to wear his standard sunglasses more often than not, it was like looking into a mirror for Ess, excluding the M.I.B. chief's bald head.

"If the word gets out about a dead Venusian on Earth soil, then it will be imminent war." Bubbles firmly stated. "I can't begin to tell you how crucial it is for you three to get the Bernallic queens back to headquarters if we want to prevent this disaster."

"I agree," Ess remarked, "but it has been two hours past the time that the queens should have returned to this apartment."

Bubbles despairingly sighed. "Where could they be?"

Hearing the conversation from close nearby, Joey alerted, "They're at a studio audition just a couple of blocks away."

"Go and get them _now_, and get them here as soon as possible." Bubbles instructed.

Accepting his orders, Ess switched off the device and pocketed it. Just as he had done so, he heard some moaning sounds and knew right away it was Chrissy, who was regaining consciousness. He looked to her as she sat up from the couch, rubbing her head and neck; she moved them both around until popping sounds could be heard clearly.

"Oh, man." She uttered. "Had the weirdest nightmare that Joey was…" She looked up to see everyone standing around her, including Joey. The sight of his detached face, exposing the tiny alien sitting inside of his "head," freaked Chrissy to the point that she screamed in reaction. It was a harsh reminder of all that had transpired in the last hours.

Ar knew only one way of solving her hysteria; without hesitation, she slapped Chrissy across the face, which immediately took her out of her shock, as well as silenced her. "Sorry I had to get physical, but we _need_ you in control, and _you_ need to get off your butt and go rescue Sierra and Sienna or else Earth is doomed."

Chrissy rapidly blinked in confusion. "Rescue Sierra and Sienna? What's hap—?"

"We'll explain on the way." Em hurriedly assured while she and Ar rushed Chrissy off the couch and towards the front door.

Upon their departure, Ar turned to Joey and ordered, "Close your face, man, before you give someone else a panic attack today."

* * *

The Crown Victoria pulled right up to the studio building just as a pale-skinned woman in sunshades and two blond girls exited. The eyes of Em and Ar widened as soon as they recognized the woman. "Oh, no," they both managed to say in perfect unison.

Chrissy saw how Sierra and Sienna were led out by force – the woman holding them at gunpoint. At least, she _thought_ it looked that way. The woman brandished some type of gun that might as well have been a toy to Chrissy. Whatever the item was, it was enough to alarm Ar, Em, and Ess – each of whom pulled out their own handguns that looked just as harmless as the one owned by Sierra and Sienna's "escort."

"What's she doing to my girls?" Chrissy asked, but no one seemed to have given her a direct answer.

Ar, Em, and Ess piled out of the Crown Victoria and aimed their guns at the woman whilst standing behind the car doors, which they used as shields. "Lower your weapon and step away from the royal queens, Joie!" Ess commanded in a loud, unyielding tone of voice that might as well have made him akin to a SWAT officer. "That is your _only_ warning!"

The pale-skinned woman, whose name Chrissy learned to be "Joie," acknowledged the presence of the three agents by slowly turning her head towards them. She did not follow Ess's commands; instead, she moved with such swift, lightning-quick speed that Chrissy barely caught her next action once she blinked. An enormous explosion of fiery sparks and green mist erupted near the agents and their car. Vehicles that approached just as the explosion happened were forced off the road, crashing onto the sidewalk and nearly running into several fleeting pedestrians.

Ar responded to Joie's firepower with that of her own, firing the unusual handgun that Em and Ess also brandished models of. Strange light blue energy was unleashed from Ar's weapon, and the area around Joie, Sienna, and Sierra erupted with explosions bigger than the one near the Crown Victoria. Ar's actions were met with immediate harsh reprimanding from Ess. "We do not discharge our weapons in view of the public!"

"Oh, really?" Ar wittingly remarked. "Then how else do you propose we handle this situation? With sticks and stones?"

Hearing this exchange and also seeing how Joie was making her way for an old, rusty red pickup truck parked across from the studio building, Chrissy made a move of her own. Stepping out of the Crown Victoria, she drew her semi and aimed not for Joie, but for the pickup. She attempted to fire a round in one of the rear tires; unfortunately, it struck one of the tail lights. The shot urged Joie to take further drastic measures.

From out of her leather jacket, Joie produced a metallic, pineapple-shaped object. She gave it a slight squeeze, which caused it to glow bright orange, before hurling it out onto the middle of the street. Chrissy only found out what it was when Em yelled, "GRENADE!" Following on this, she ducked back into the vehicle along with Ar, Ess, and Em, all of them (and Joey) crouched down low.

Chrissy first heard a high-pitched buzzing sound before feeling the car tremble heavily; following that experience, she heard various car alarms go off simultaneously. It was the strangest explosion she ever heard or felt. She thought Em made a bad call on identifying the weapon (if one would choose to call it that). However, _something_ did make their vehicle shake – and others as well by their alarms sounding – as if there _was_ an explosion. Curiously, Chrissy moved out of the car along with the others and was met with one startling sight: **a large crater in the middle of the street**!

Right across from it, they could see one moving vehicle (the old pickup Joie targeted for theft) speeding away. "That was her," Chrissy exclaimed in a state of panic.

Ar was surprised by Chrissy's recognition of their escapee. "You _know_ Joie?"

"Not by name, just appearance." Chrissy clarified. "She was the other suspect that got away in that chase me and my partner were in this morning."

"The peace treaty is still active." Em noted. "Doesn't she realize that she's violating it with her actions?"

Ess nodded with her observation. "Venusians are known for their sense of loyalty in spite of their fierce nature."

"Um, excuse me?" Chrissy reminded the agents of the true nature of their situation, as they appeared to be lost in business she felt bore no meaning whatsoever to what had happened with Sienna and Sierra. "That crazy witch just made off with my daughters, and you three are standing here talking about peace treaties and people from Venus!"

Joey stepped in and calmly addressed her. "Chrissy, they're not your…"

"_You_ keep quiet." She interceded with a harsh finger pointed directly at him.

"Chrissy, relax." Em said. "We'll get the girls back, I promise."

Ess looked around the area and saw the frightened bystanders who witnessed the entire scene and currently stood around the large crater Joie's grenade made. It was a definite mess to say the least, but he knew a cleanup crew would be there soon to fix it. What really troubled the stoic agent, on the other hand, was the kidnapping of the royal peacekeeping queens. Turning to the side, he pulled out his viewer-communicator and contacted Bubbles.

As soon as the M.I.B. chief's face popped up on the small screen again, Ess gave the report: "Cobra. Joie got away with the queens."

"That's a problem." Bubbles casually said. "But we have an even bigger one at the moment. Get back to headquarters…and bring Joey _and_ Chrissy with you."

"Will do." Ess confirmed before shutting off the device.

Hearing her name mentioned in their brief conversation, Chrissy asked, "Bring me to _your_ headquarters? And where might _that_ be?"

Ar smirked. "It'd be more fun to show you."

Chrissy watched them as the agents and Joey all climbed back into the Crown Victoria. She got an odd feeling about where she was headed next with this weird group of characters, but another feeling she had in her urged her to trust them. With little hesitation, she went back inside the black vehicle, sitting in the backseat with Joey (someone she could barely look at since his "shocking reveal"). Because of the crater, Ess had to make a U-turn on the ravaged street corner to head in the necessary direction.

As the Crown Victoria departed, a large black van pulled into the area. A group of men in black suits, worn beneath plastic jumpsuits, stepped out while the one behind the wheel spoke into a microphone connected to a loudspeaker atop the van. "Ladies and gentlemen, can I have your attention please?" The bystanders gathered around the crater turned to the van. "Thank you. If you would gather around my associate and look right at the object in his hand, we'd appreciate it."

* * *

Arriving at 504 Battery Drive across town, Chrissy imagined the "headquarters" to be a tall, majestic glass building with several other suits walking in and out of it. To her surprise, it turned out to be a typical squared, beige-colored building with the name "Brooklyn Battery Tunnel – Triborough Bridge & Tunnel Authority" etched into its front structure. Hardly anyone walked around the front of the building – just the occasional pedestrian or homeless person who didn't give it much of a thought.

"Are we at the right place?" She curiously questioned.

"We're at the right place – trust us." Ar assured.

All Chrissy could do was trust them at that point – the point of no return. It seemed to her like she was leaving the fabrication that was her life behind to enter one that was presumably far more disenchanting. She followed the agents and Joey into the building, which she discovered to be just as ordinary on the inside as much as the outside with two large fans, a lone guard sitting in a chair, and a lone elevator.

"What up!" Ar greeted the guard, an elderly African American man, wearing the same type of black suit that Ess had. He only greeted Ar with a smug look before returning to his newspaper. She snickered and shook her head from his lack of friendliness. "Alright, alright. I'll see ya later." Upon stepping into the elevator, she muttered to her friends, "One day I'm going to get that guy to smile, or at least laugh."

Chrissy was still baffled over the surroundings, especially the dull gray elevator they had taken down. "I guess I shouldn't expect too much from a government headquarters owned and operated by government people," she commented.

Ar turned to her with an amused grin. "You think we're government?"

"We _aren't_ the government." Ess stated.

Chrissy gazed at the stoic young man, who stood as stiff as a board in the elevator and looked directly at the door adjacent to the one they stepped through without a hint of emotion. "If you're not government, then _what_ are you?"

The elevator came to a stop and the door that Ess faced slid open. Whiteness suddenly illuminated the dull elevator as Chrissy saw the area they arrived to. Her face lit with surprise over what was undoubtedly the agents' _real_ headquarters – a huge, futuristic-looking place with a 1960s design, high walls, and many rooms (some containing highly-advanced alien technology). To Chrissy, it resembled an airport with aliens of different races, shapes, sizes, and colors walking among humans also dressed in the standard black suits. And there was an office towering above all else – she knew that had to be the office of the man Ess had been contacting, Cobra Bubbles.

At the time of their arrival, however, Bubbles was not in his office but near the front of the large room where a giant, white, oval-shaped screen was located. At the screen's controls were two identical aliens that appeared to be a species of invertebrates with worm-like bodies that had large eyes pinched in the middle and several arms around them.

"What the heck are those?" Chrissy asked, pointing directly to the twin aliens.

"We call them 'The Twins' – Idikiukup and Bob." Em answered. "They're from Centauri B. Without them, we wouldn't know about each and every one of the aliens here on Earth."

Chrissy gazed up at the oval-shaped screen that the Twins operated, seeing the faces of various people – some ordinary, some recognizable – projected in a collage that randomly switched every ten seconds. From what she managed to make out from the collage, Chrissy discovered names such as Ariel, Clark Kent, Rafiki, Merlin, and Cruella De Vil; there was even one man who only went by a codename of sorts, "The Doctor."

"Unbelievable." Chrissy muttered.

"Good to see you again."

Her eyes moved away from the screen as soon as she heard Bubbles' voice address her. She looked right at him as he approached her, discovering him to be a tall, serious muscular African American man – a near perfect clone of Ess with the exception of baldness and one ear pierced. "Say what?"

"I said that it's good to see you again, after all these years."

She gave an exasperated snicker. "O.K. I'm a bit fed up over meeting strangers that_ I_ don't know but _they_ know me. _How_ do you all know me?"

"Because you were once an agent of the Men in Black." Bubbles divulged.

Chrissy inquisitively frowned on the agency's name. "Men in Black?"

"M.I.B. for short." Ar added. "And, yeah, we know it's weird that we're called _Men_ in Black, despite there being women here, but we can't call ourselves 'Men and Women in Black,' or else our acronym would be 'M.A.W.I.B.,' which would just be weird." After talking for what seemed like minutes, everyone stared blankly at her. Feeling awkward, she pretended to clear her throat and told Bubbles, "Continue, sir."

Not missing a beat, Bubbles did in fact continue from where he left off: "Your name was Agent Cee."

"Cee for 'Chrissy,' right? Cute." Chrissy said with an admirable smile. "But the idea of me being an agent for a secret organization like this is just downright impossible."

"You don't remember ever being an agent because your memories were erased to maintain cover while protecting Sierra and Sienna from the Coalition of Enforcers." Bubbles explicated.

His confirmation of this proved what Joey told her earlier was the truth – Sierra and Sienna were _not_ her daughters. This, for good reason, made her furious. Yet she opted not to lash out, only for the sake of Sierra and Sienna, who she now realized were in greater than initially thought.

"My…I mean, the girls." She fought to speak through her frustrations. "We need to find them. If it's been my job to protect them for fourteen years, I'm not stopping because of some alien tramp that took them from me."

Ar appeared a little hesitant to address Chrissy. "Um, n-not to add on to all the surprises you've been getting today, but you've actually only watched over the girls for _two_ years."

It was yet another revelation that shocked Chrissy to her very core. All the memories she had of Sierra and Sienna (their birthdays, Christmases, family get-togethers, etc.) had all been lies. _So many untruths_, she thought in her state of distress. _How many more are they keeping from me?_

"Ar, Em…take her to the locker room and help her put it on." Bubbles ordered.

"Put _what_ on?" Chrissy queried.

"The last suit you ever _wore_." Bubbles replied.

The ladies made their way out of the busy room, leaving Ess with Cobra. As soon as the two had a moment to themselves, Ess said to his superior, "You told me of a 'bigger problem' we have. What is it?"

Bubbles looked to the Twins and ordered, "Switch to main cable satellite screen." They did as he said and changed the collage on the oval screen to one enlarged image of a recent newscast reporting of an incident in the Pacific Ocean. According to the report, all that was recovered from the incident was a video camera that captured footage of something that dragged a ship and its crew to the depth. The live footage was broadcast, but it was blurry, only showing what appeared to be a gigantic octopus underwater. As soon as the octopus was shown, Cobra ordered to the Twins, "Freeze frame."

Idikiukup and Bob acknowledged the command and the still image was projected, enhanced, and cleaned up to provide a more defined picture of the undersea beast. Ess and Cobra realized that it only resembled an octopus by its head while the rest of it was actually humanoid.

Ess identified the beast once he recognized it: "Cthulhu."

"The Coalition is calling upon the Great Old Ones to assassinate the queens for them." Bubbles noted.

"It won't do them much good with a Venusian possessing the queens."

"Tell that to the mindless beast plaguing the Pacific waters."


	5. The Great Escapes

**Chapter Five: The Great Escapes**

Joie wished she had chosen more comforting or less conspicuous means of escorting the Bernallic queens to Kauai, because the constant stares she received at the Port Allen Airport infuriated her. The attachable hoodie from her leather jacket and sunshades were practically useless with her white-as-a-sheet skin out for all of society to see under the Hawaiian sun.

One particular man – a short, bespectacled, balding stranger that bore a resemblance to George Costanza – stared since leaving the same plane he and his family arrived in. His staring alone drove Joie to the point where she sharply turned to his direction and said, "The f**k you lookin' at! Huh?" This outburst was enough to prompt the man to retreat his eyes elsewhere.

Noting the scene she caused, Sierra commented, "Can ya blame all of them for staring? You look like a demon from hell."

Joie glared at her – the fuchsia pupils of her eyes glowing beneath her shades like the Terminator. "You best watch your lil' smart-ass mouth, before I start thinkin' of _creative_ ways of shuttin' it."

The Venusian's tough attitude didn't scare Sierra as much as Joie thought it did. She knew this situation would be rectified soon, and there wouldn't be a thing Joie could do about it. Meanwhile, her twin sister's attention was averted to a nearby television set, which broadcasted news of a large, mysterious creature in the Pacific Ocean. The blurred footage that was shown of the creature struck great fear in both Sierra and Sierra, who watched with opened mouths.

Joie saw it as well and grew furious. "Dammit! What're those fools thinkin'?"

Sierra found amusement in Joie's sudden frustration. "Puts quite a damper on your plans, doesn't it?" As soon after she made her remark, she felt a sharp pain from the back of her neck, which Joie clasped down hard upon.

"_Shut up!_" The Venusian said through gritted teeth. "This ain't over 'til I _say_ it's over, ya feel me?" She gazed back up at the television. "I need to meet up with my contact before Cthulhu finds our asses here. Now _move_!"

Sierra and Sienna complied with her command and moved towards the airport exit. Just pass it were taxicabs stationed in a row, waiting for their next customers. Only one was available at the moment while others were occupied with many passengers packing their luggage in the trunk of each cab. The queens wanted desperately to make a run for that one available taxicab, jump right into it, and ride away from Joie. But with Joie's firm grip on Sierra's neck and watching their every move, it was virtually impossible to make any type of escape.

Before the three women reached the sliding glass doors, a loud, gurgling noise was heard directly from Joie's abdomen. Sierra felt the grip on her neck loosen, allowing her to turn to the Venusian and see her other hand clutching her stomach. "Ohh, damn," she muttered.

"What's the matter with you?" Sienna curiously asked.

"What do you _think_?" Joie cuttingly replied, just as the gurgling got more intense from her belly. "The damn food on this damn planet!"

Sienna smirked. "Too exotic for your Venusian system?"

Joie doubled over, just as a bit of flatulence escaped from her posterior. "I need a bathroom _now_," she uttered in a quivering voice. "And you two are comin' with me."

Sienna and Sierra's eyes widened with disgust from this command.

"You've got to be kidding us." Sienna said.

"Does it _sound_ like I'm kiddin'?" Joie countered whilst taking Sienna's head and bringing it against her belly – the intensifying gurgling noises ringing in Sienna's right ear.

"Alright, alright." Sienna yielded. "We'll go with you."

Joie and the queens turned from the exit and made their way to the nearest restroom. Joie forced them to walk in front of her, yet their pace was too slow for her and her ready-to-explode derriere, so she gave each of them a push to speed them up. Once they finally arrived at the women's restroom, Joie rushed ahead of the queens and into the nearest available stall, closing the door behind her.

Sierra and Sienna stood and stared vacuously at the closed stall while near-rhythmic sounds of gassiness exploded from it. The public restroom was quickly polluted with the foul odor of Venusian bodily gas, forcing the queens to hold their noses in revulsion.

"I'm not staying in here for another minute." Sienna whispered to her sister.

"Why are we staying here _at all_?" Sierra whispered back. "Let's make a break right now. She can't do anything from in there."

Realizing that Sierra had a point, Sienna followed her lead. In a split second, the royal sisters cleared from the restroom as quietly as possible. After some time had passed from _her_ "passing," Joie noticed how quiet the restroom was from outside her stall.

"You two had better still be out there." When she received no reply, she grunted in total exasperation (as well as relieve). "Shit."

* * *

_Last suit I ever wore, huh? Did it have to be one that constantly rides up my butt crack?_

Chrissy counted her lucky stars that no one else was with her in the locker room of the M.I.B. headquarters to witness the full hour it took for her to put on what Ar and Em referred as her "old suit." She couldn't remember ever putting it on, but she doubted whatever that last time was when she wore it, it could not have been as snug as it was that very moment. The pants felt _extremely_ tight on her backside, thighs, and legs; most of the hour she spent slipping the suit on was put into that article of clothing. From the full-length mirror on her locker room door, she could see just how tight the pants looked: she could make out an outline of the briefs she wore underneath (as well as her buttocks). They might as well have been leggings, being as tight as they were.

But the pants weren't half of the story – much of the problem with the suit came from the waist up. Her noticeable bust size was even _more_ noticeable through the white shirt she was unable to button all the way to the collar. This left her with no other choice but to leave the top four buttons undone, thus enabling cleavage. She was also unable to wear the tie, which would've just made the whole ensemble look ridiculous and trashy for her. She already felt like a walking "booty call" waiting to happen wearing such tight and loose clothing. Upon putting the jacket on, she realized that the sleeves went up to her elbows, forcing her to roll the shirt sleeves to that level in order to compensate for fashion.

The strangest thing that she encountered above all was the lack of footwear. There were no shoes or shocks in her locker. At first, she ran on the possible scenario that one other agent borrowed them after he or she had some difficulty finding their own; however, she recalled Ar telling her on the way in how agents' lockers had specific combinations that only the agent themselves were allowed to remember. This could only mean that Chrissy's old locker had remained untouched and the notable absence of footwear was purposely part of the arrangement inside of it. What kind of agent was Chrissy _not_ to have owned a pair of shoes?

Baffled and frustrated, Chrissy stood there by her open locker with her bare feet on the cold marble floor. There was no way she was going out on the field barefoot.

"Hey." She heard someone to her right call out to her. Looking up from her bare feet, she saw Em standing across from her with Ar and holding up a pair of black combat shoes that she tossed over to Chrissy. "Extra pair I had in _my_ locker for such an occasion."

Chrissy smiled as she held the boots, which included a balled-up pair of socks in the left shoe. "Thanks." She then cautiously sat on the bench across from her locker to put the new footwear on; her clothes (particularly her pants) felt even tighter while sitting, but they remarkably remained intact.

"You know the difference two years make?" Ar rhetorically inquired. "You make this look good _now_."

Chrissy snickered at her good-hearted compliment. "I look like a walking wardrobe malfunction in this getup. My butt cheeks and boobs feel like they're in a vise. Did this suit even belong to me?"

Em couldn't stifle an amused chuckle over Chrissy's misery. "It's just a retirement thing. It'll fit you like a glove again after some time back in the field."

"Yeah, I hope so." Chrissy remarked while tying the laces of the boots.

Ar took notice in just how miserable Chrissy seemed to be. "Are you sure you're alright? 'Cause we can find you better-suited clothes if you—"

"I can put up with the clothes." Chrissy said – her desolation evident in her harsh tone.

"Then…you're cool?" Ar questioned.

"Oh, I'm doing awesome, despite finding out that the last 14 years of my life are all a lie." She sardonically replied.

Ar and Em sighed, both feeling horrible about what Chrissy was going through.

"You may not believe this, Chrissy, but it's better not to know the _real_ life you had than the one you were _fooled_ into having." Ar stated.

Chrissy shot her a disapproving look. "And how exactly is it 'better'?"

"The hardest thing about being an M.I.B. agent is giving up the life you once had while still having all the memories of it." Em said.

The morose faces of the two experienced agents intrigued Chrissy; it was clear both of them had stories of their own. "Were either of you mothers in _your_ lives before M.I.B.?"

There was some reluctance in Ar and Em to respond, both women looking off into space as if to avoid answering the question. Of course, after they each managed to overcome their hesitation, they instantaneously replied, "We were."

Surprised by this revelation of the two, Chrissy curiously asked, "Why would you two give up motherhood for being galaxy enforcers or whatever?"

"We both lived some difficult lives before enlisting in the organization." Em said with much solemnity.

"How difficult could it have been?" Chrissy asked.

Although Ar appeared to be more reserved than before, Em was ready to open up her story to Chrissy. That was until their conversation was interrupted by Ess, who emerged in the locker room, appearing more formal than usual.

"Frank just got us a tip on our kidnapping." The agent informed. "I arranged a meeting with him at the docks. We have to get there _now_."

"Frank? At the docks?" Ar humorously remarked. "Oh, you know this'll be interesting."

As the agents made their way out of the locker room, Chrissy shut her locker and asked, "Who's Frank?"

* * *

Mid-afternoon at the New York docks felt less than enticing to Chrissy. The area had been known to harbor unusual characters that might as well have been aliens now that she had learned there were many on Earth. As she and the other M.I.B. agents pulled into the area and parked the Crown Victoria amidst towering stacks of multicolored intermodal containers, she continued to wonder who this character "Frank" was and how much help he could be to their case. Ar, Em, and Ess weren't very clear on their answers to her inquiries of him, which left her heavily curious by the time they arrived at the docks.

Winding around the towers of shipping containers like a hedge maze, the agents moved so deep within it that Chrissy could barely remember where they parked; she just hoped that Ess, who had been leading them in, could himself. Finally, after a few minutes of random trekking, Chrissy and the group came upon an area occupied by dogs gathered around what appeared to be a poker table – each holding pairs of cards with poker chips and various valuables scattered at the center.

The odd scene was straight out of a C.M. Coolidge painting with a pug, a Jack Russell terrier, a Chihuahua, a Great Dane, a Saluki, and a bulldog assembled together and playing as if they were humans. There were no people around to show for this strange assembly, which – to Chrissy – seemed like something retained for a still-life painting to be made of it. And it only got weirder when she saw Ess approach the pug and say, "We're here, Frank. What've you got for us?"

Chrissy impulsively busted with laughter, directing all attention to her. "I'm sorry, but…is this some type of joke? Are you guys punkin' the rookie on her first day on the job?"

"I think ya got punk'd when ya put on my old suit, big cheeks."

Chrissy's laughing was cut instantly when she saw that the insult came directly from the pug that _talked_ in perfect English to her. It was even more of a surprise when the other dogs at the poker table laughed and gave praise to the pug's snarky comment.

"Big cheeks – ha! Good one, Frank!" The terrier said, exchanging a high-five with the pug by slapping their paws as if they were hands.

"Thanks, Dodger." Frank (the pug) remarked before focusing on Ess. "So you're here 'cause of my tip on the Coalition, eh? Those idiots have gotten sloppy and desperate."

"Yeah, tell us something we _don't_ know." Ar uttered.

"What _doesn't_ M.I.B. know these days?" Frank said. "I'm not surprised you guys know about that gruesome behemoth the Coals sent out to tear the planet apart for two brats."

"_Hey!_" Chrissy snapped, suddenly moving past the ridiculousness of a talking pug with a New York accent once she took offense to his negative reference to Sienna and Sierra. "Watch your little mouth!"

"Why do you care so much about those kids, lady?" Frank queried.

Chrissy frowned. "I'm their mother."

Frank and his fellow canines again laughed at Chrissy, more hysterical than before. "Those kids got no mother anymore. She died along with the rest of their people when their planet was destroyed by the Coalition."

Chrissy was struck hard by this. "What?"

"Geez, lady. How much of a rookie are _you_ not to know something like that?" Frank asked.

The realization of Sierra and Sienna being the last of their kind made Chrissy feel cold. Having been placed under her protection for a time that she had been led to believe was fourteen years more than enough overwhelmed her; but the idea of them living as an endangered species the entire time made her even more determined to protect them from their current threat.

"What do you know about Joie?" Ess questioned to Frank, going right back to business.

"Other than the fact that she's one determined chick, nothing much."

"Well, why do you think she kidnapped the queens?" Em grilled.

Frank chuckled at the inquiry. "Why would any self-respected Venusian bounty hunter kidnap intergalactic royalty – to collect the dough."

"Truth be told, man," the Chihuahua spoke up, "I don't think that she-devil's after the money. I think she's got another ace up her sleeve."

"Speaking of which, Tito, I could swear I saw you hidin' one of your cards just now." The terrier (named Dodger) indicated.

"I'm butt-naked over here, man!" Tito exclaimed. "Where am I gonna hide it?"

"You _really_ want us to answer that?" Frank said.

As the dogs began to argue amongst themselves (to the point that they started barking like proper canines), Chrissy let out a frustrated moan while moving away from the area. Ess, Ar, and Em noticed her leaving and decided, after realizing their exchange with Frank was pretty much done, to follow her.

"That got us nowhere fast." She vexed. "He didn't tell us anything."

"Oh, he did." Ar contradicted. "For once, Frank actually came through."

Chrissy fired a bemused glance at her. "Did you miss what happened back there?"

"No, Ar's right." Em said. "We know now that Joie has completely gone renegade, and we can now trace the whereabouts of Sienna and Sierra by seeing what direction Cthulhu is headed."

Chrissy stopped in her tracks upon hearing Em's plan, prompting the other agents to stop as well. "Wait a minute. That sounds like you're using them as bait for that thing."

"Oh, no. Never." Em denied.

"We wouldn't do such a thing." Ar also disproved.

"Yes, that is _exactly_ what we're doing." Ess aloofly confirmed, garnering him gazes of surprise from Ar and Em (due to his abrupt honesty) and obvious fear from Chrissy. In the meantime, the impassive agent had retrieved his viewer-communicator to contact Bubbles. "Cobra, have the Twins track the Great Old One's movements."

"They already have." Bubbles responded from the device. "Cthulhu is headed for the Hawaiian Islands."

Chrissy shook her head negatively. "That's still not enough to pinpoint the girls' location. There are _eight_ major islands that make up the chain."

"Then I suggest the four of you try Kauai." Bubbles said. "We've just been requested by the Galactic Federation to dispatch agents to that area."

"Why's that?" Ar quizzed.

"Jumba Jookiba's experiment has escaped…and it's now on Earth."


	6. It's A Mystery

**Chapter Six: It's A Mystery**

It was a sunny morning on the Kauai beach – the perfect time to sit down and enjoy the cool breeze and soothing sound of ocean waves. This was the particular morning for a bald, overweight man with sunburn (except for where he had apparently been wearing a tank top) wearing sunglasses, swim trunks, and flip flops. His large frame sat upon a folding chair, its legs firmly planted in the sand to maintain balance, with his cold scoop of mint chocolate chip ice cream sitting atop an equally cool waffle cone, ready to be consumed.

That was just the achievement he was about to partake in, his tongue on the verge of taking its first lick of the flavor…until he was interrupted by what apparently sounded like a jet roaring very close to ground level. Looking up from his cone and expecting to see a jet or commercial plane, he instead saw something quite out of the ordinary: a black 1987 Ford LTD Crown Victoria _flying_ over the sea and coming to a stop right upon the shore. From beneath his sunshades, the man stared blankly at the unordinary vehicle, multiple thoughts running through his mind.

After its landing, the passenger side window of the Crown Victoria came down. The man with the melting mint chocolate chip ice cream cone suddenly caught sight of a blonde also wearing a pair of sunglasses, popping her head out the window and looking towards the man. "Excuse me, sir," she politely addressed him. "Would you mind removing your shades?" He obliged to her request, and before he knew it, he was caught by a sudden flash of light from an usual device the blonde held in her right hand. He found himself in a daze, unable to remember anything that happened in the last ten minutes. All he knew was that there was a 1987 Ford LTD Crown Victoria parked on the beach and a mint chocolate chip ice cream cone melting in his hand.

"Thank you, sir. Enjoy your ice cream." The smiling blonde told him before pulling her head back into the car, which drove away from the beach shortly thereafter.

The man vacantly watched the vehicle depart, barely noticing his unfinished ice cream fall off the cone.

* * *

Ess managed to reach the nearest highway in less than a few minutes, driving normally alongside other vehicles. "Where exactly is it that we're going?" He heard Ar ask from the backseat.

"You remember the Informant?" Ess inquired.

The name sparked great excitement in Ar and Em.

Ar stomped her feet on the floor like a giddy little girl. "We're seeing the Informant! Hell yeah!"

"I've heard stories about him and what he's done for M.I.B." Em said. "I wasn't even born when most of it happened!"

Seeing the thrill Ar and Em had taken in this news, Chrissy grew heavily confused. "Who is this 'Informant'?" She then grew hopeful as she came upon the realization that led into her next question: "Can he help us find Sierra and Sienna?"

"He'll do _more_ than just help." Ess assured.

Unfortunately, Chrissy wasn't so reassured by his statement. She slumped in her seat, looking out through her window. From the rearview mirror, Em could see how increasingly concerned Chrissy had become about the girls. "Hey, Sierra and Sienna have centuries of resourcefulness between them," she told her. "Joie has only forty years. She has _completely_ underestimated their intelligence."

"Em, they're children." Chrissy remarked. "They're probably more frightened than I am right now."

From behind his sunglasses, Ess briefly looked away from the road and at Chrissy in the rearview mirror, completely disapproving of her still living under the mentality that she was the girls' _actual_ mother. He didn't say a word of it, since she was unnerved as it was about their safety; but he knew something had to convince her or shake her out of this naivety.

* * *

It had taken half an hour for the agents to arrive at their destination: a tourist trap in the outskirts of Kauai called "The Mystery Shack." Upon their arrival, Chrissy, Em, and Ar were all baffled as they gazed at the poorly structured development. Their first collective thought was perhaps Ess had taken a wrong turn somewhere; but, from the way he shut off the car and got out of it, there was no denying this was really where they were supposed to be.

"I thought we were seeing the Informant." Ar said as she got out of the car with Chrissy and Em.

Ess gestured to the Mystery Shack. "This is where he lives."

Em and Ar stood more surprised than Chrissy was at the strangeness before them.

"I thought the Informant lived someplace more majestic than this," Em said, "like a palace or something."

Ar nodded in agreement. "Yeah, not some five-dollar establishment that probably charges ten bucks."

"_Thirty_ bucks, actually." Ess corrected.

Anger boiled inside of Chrissy as she glared at Ess. "You had me believe we were getting _real_ help, but instead we're going to a nutcase?"

"He _isn't_ a nutcase." Ess responded, almost defensively.

Chrissy mockingly snickered. "One has to be to live in an old shack like this."

"Chrissy, in Ess's defense, you should've learned by now that appearances aren't everything." Em stated.

All of the sudden, the "S" of the "Mystery Shack" sign on the sloping rooftop snapped off, landing on the ground just a few feet from where the agents stood. Chrissy, Ar, and Em jumped as the huge letter landed with a crashing thud. As if on cue, a portly man in a brown cap with dark brown shoes, beige shorts, and a jade green shirt with a big question mark on the front and the word "Staff" on the back stepped out from the main entrance.

Seeing the "S" on the ground, he said in an odd voice, "Aw, not again." He then added in a voice that was a sad attempt in sounding heroic, "Looks like a job for Soos." The staff member (whose name the agents had to guess _was_ "Soos") marched back inside, possibly to get his toolbox.

Chrissy looked up at the sign, which now read "Mystery Hack," and frowned. "I rest my case."

Although they were reluctant, the three female agents followed Ess in through the gift shop entrance of the Mystery Shack. The first person they see inside was a tall, skinny fifteen-year-old girl sitting at the checkout counter; she had green eyes, fair complexion, freckles, and long red hair and wore a jade plaid shirt with a white tank top underneath, blue jeans, muddy rain boots, gray/blue earrings, a tan and dark brown lumberjack hat, and a nametag that read "Wendy." At the moment the agents walked in, they found her reading the National Enquirer; on the front page was the headline "New York Librarian Spooked – Claims It Was Ghost."

Ess approached both the girl and the counter and asked, "May we see Stan Pines?"

Wendy – not once looking at them – answered, "Stan's busy right now giving a tour." That was all she said, creating a moment of awkward silence between her and the agents.

An impatient Ar was then prompted to ask, "By any chance you know _when_ he'll be available to speak to us?"

"Tours normally last from thirty to sixty minutes." Wendy noted – her focus still kept on the Enquirer as she responded.

Chrissy groaned in frustration. "That is practically an hour! We are wasting precious time that could be spent looking for Sierra and Sienna!"

"The FBI!"

The joyful exclamation came directly from a short, brown-eyed, relatively pale 12-year-old boy with messy brown hair beneath a blue/white hat (with a blue brim and blue pine tree on the front), wearing a navy blue vest, red/orange shirt, grey shorts, white socks with a red stripe, black sneakers, and a grey wristwatch. He approached the agents in a fit of hysteria.

"I'm Dipper. I've been contacting the government about the weird happenings in this area since my sister and I first came here."

Em raised a curious eyebrow. "What types of happenings, sunshine?"

"Well," Dipper began, "there've been a bunch of them. Like this one time when an elf creature called a Korrigan had—"

Before Dipper could speak more on the topic, there suddenly came a scream from another 12-year-old – this one being a brown-eyed girl that had round cheeks with blush pink spots, long brown hair that reached to her hips, and braces; she wore a pink sweater with a rainbow shooting star going in the left direction on front, a matching pink headband, and a purple skirt with black shoes and white socks. She moved in beside Dipper (she was noticeably one millimeter taller than him), pointing at the agents and yelling, "Dipper, what're you doing talking to the I.R.S.? You know they've been looking for Grunkle Stan!"

Dipper looked at the girl strangely. "The I.R….Mabel, they're not the—"

"GRUNKLE STAN!" The girl known as Mabel cried.

"I'm busy!" A gravelly old voice shouted in anger from behind the curtained doorway to the museum.

"I…R…S!" Mabel sounded out the acronym.

In the blink of an eye, Stan rushed out through the curtains in a panic. The grayed old man (whose age Chrissy, Ar, and Em couldn't accurately decipher) had a somewhat large, droopy, pear-shaped, reddish-pinkish nose with large ears, fair skin, wrinkly skin, dentures, a slouched posture, and a perpetual five o'clock shadow. He wore a pair of rectangular glasses with a black rim, a maroon fez that bore a yellow crescent shape with a dot next to it, big light brown shoes, and a black suit with the jacket buttoned closed, a bow tie similar in color to his fez, and a white dress shirt. He carried an eight-ball cane with him as he made his entrance into the gift shop.

"Uh, I got the money comin' to ya. The check's in the mail." He spoke upon his entrance, sounding like he had rehearsed the whole address.

However, when he spotted the agents, Stan went from panicked to slightly nervous; he knew who the agents were. Because of this, he tried to play coy in front of Dipper, Mabel, and Wendy. With a forced chuckle, he said, "Oh, Mabel. You really had me goin' there for a sec. These people aren't the I.R.S."

"That's right." Dipper said with a smile. "They're clearly from the FBI. Look at the black suits."

"Uh…they're not from the FBI either, kid." Stan debunked.

Dipper and Mabel swapped confused glances.

"Well, if they're not the I.R.S. _or_ the F.B.I., then who _are_ they?" Mabel queried.

Stan stammered for nearly a minute, looking for a perfect cover-up until he finally blurted out, "Health inspectors! Yeah, that's it! They're health inspectors!"

"If they're health inspectors, then the Shack is _definitely_ getting shut down." Dipper indicated. "This place isn't exactly good for _anybody's_ health."

"And you two aren't exactly either." Stan snapped before pointing to the curtain entrance to the museum with his cane. "Now get your butts in there and take care of the tour I was just rudely pulled away from while I take care of these health inspectors."

As soon as his niece and nephew departed into the museum, Stan moved in towards the agents to address them. Before he could, he noticed Ar placing her left hand beside her face as if to cover her mouth while mouthing the words "She's listening" to Stan and pointing in Wendy's direction.

"No problem. Watch this." Stan whispered. He then spoke loud enough for Wendy to hear, even though she was just a couple of feet away: "Ohh, man! This gallbladder of mine! It's the size of a watermelon! You guys have no idea how much trouble it is just to pee sitting down!" He added a few vulgar groans to sell the point of the topic of _his_ health being inspected.

Wendy reacted to the exclamations by casually putting on headphones to drown out Stan's rambling. Seeing that the trick worked, Ar chuckled in amusement and said, "Nice one! She bought the lie!"

"Actually, all of it was true." Stan admitted. "I think my gallbladder _really is_ jacked-up. I need to get it checked out sometime." His attitude shifted into delight once he realized that he was left privately with the agents. "So the M.I.B. came crawlin' back to my life after nearly 30 years, eh?" He chuckled while he stepped in beside Ess. "And how _you_ doin', old buddy? You haven't changed a bit since 1974." That particular compliment baffled and surprised Chrissy, although she didn't have time to outright question it with Stan switching his focus to her, Ar, and Em. "And got some real sweet young tomatoes with ya, too – especially this busty beauty." He expressed an extra fondness towards Chrissy, who felt a bit unsettled by the old man's lurid behavior.

In reaction to Stan's attitude towards Chrissy, Ess leaned in beside Stan's left ear and whispered something to the old man that completely changed his treatment of Chrissy. Before she knew it, Stan was down on his knees and begging her. "Oh, accept my most humbled apologies!"

The perplexed Chrissy stood speechless over the old man pleading at her feet.

"Stan, she doesn't remember who she really is." Ess indicated in annoyance.

And, as quick as it did before, Stan's demeanor shifted once more, breathing a sigh of relief. "Whew! That's a load off _my_ mind. But still keep this out of the ears of the Grand Councilwoman…if she _has_ ears, that is."

"Stan, we're here to see _it_." Ess elaborated on his pronunciation of the word "it" to clue the old man in.

Knowing the "it" that the agent referred to, Stan jubilantly smiled. "I knew you would want to see _it_ again after so many years, Ess. I fought hard to protect the Mystery Shack because of _it_. Any of you ever heard of a kid named Gideon?" When he saw each of the agents shake their heads in reply, he added, "Good. Now follow me."

He proceeded in leading them over to a nearby vending machine and entered a sequence of numbers on its keypad. After entering what had to be a code of some sorts, the vending machine separated from the wall, revealing a secret passage behind it. Stan looked around to see if anyone had been watching – no one was, not even Wendy, whose face was still deep in her copy of the National Enquirer – and led the agents through the passageway, closing the vending machine back in place to seal it.

Together, the five of them traveled down a series of stairs and approached an elevator. To the left of this elevator was a control panel bolted to the wall. Opening the panel, Stan exposed a keypad, a small LED screen, and two buttons with neon green arrows labeled on them, pointing up and down. He entered a code of four hieroglyphic symbols before pressing the "Down" button. The elevator door opened, allowing Stan and the agents inside, and took them down three floors. They arrived within the subterranean level of the Mystery Shack, which consisted of a laboratory room filled with retro futuristic-looking computers, gadgets, and machines, all of them constantly working.

At the end of the room was a desk with many electronic devices and a strange glowing symbol etched in on the side. On this desk was a picture of Dipper and Mabel and just below it was a shelf containing a series of books in which Stan hid one burgundy-colored book with various rips and tears, most noticeably a huge piece missing in the upper right hand corner. It had two gold binder lines on its spine, and its three remaining corner-covers were gold as well. In the center of the cover was a gold hand with six fingers and the number "1" printed in the middle. Its pages were seemingly worn, and it held various page markers.

Stan took two more books out of the shelf – one labeled "2" that was burgundy red with three gold-colored corners in the front and none in the back, and two gold-colored lines on book's spine (it appeared to be in somewhat better condition than the book labeled "1," with only slight damage); and another labeled "3" that was also burgundy-colored and had various rips and tears on the cover due to age, with various alchemist symbols on the back. Stan opened each book to specific pages and combined them to reveal the blueprint to a strange, complex machine that looked alien in origin to Ar, Em, and Chrissy.

"Is that…a Stargate?" Ar questioned.

"Ehh, something like that," answered Stan, who proceeded in entering a code into a complex console on his desk. As he did, the agents noticed something light up beyond the small, squared window at the desk. They saw it to be another room, which was housed for a device with a large, inverted metal triangle and lights dotting along its edge. There was a large hole in the center and symbols encircling it. The bottom tip of the triangle was connected to a base with many large thick cords that in turn connected to two circular platforms embedded into the ground.

Noting the symbols, Chrissy asked, "What do these weird hieroglyphs say?"

"They represent the Behenian fixed stars," Ess replied, "a selection of fifteen stars considered useful for magical applications in medieval astrology."

Chrissy's eyes widened with amusement. "Awesome."

Stan and the agents entered the room, and he approached a large lever that he used to switch the device on. It sparked to life, lighting up everything from the triangle to the platforms after a series of electrical sparks and flashing blue lasers that interconnected. Ar, Em, and especially Chrissy were all astonished by the alien machine.

"W-What is it?" Chrissy inquired. "Is it _really_ a Stargate?"

"You people watch too many Kurt Russell movies, you know that?" Stan criticized. "It's called a Multiverse Gate – or, at least, that's what _Ess_ calls it. He's used the thing long before I even discovered it."

Chrissy's eyes refocused on Ess, surprised by the reference to his longevity and experience for the second time since they arrived at the shack. Meanwhile, Em had been focused on the Multiverse Gate, the name of which brought a bit more interest to her than the device itself. "Multiverse Gate? That can only mean this machine can open a gateway to infinite new worlds!"

"And that is exactly the reason _I'm_ going to use it." Ess remarked. He then turned his attention to Stan and asked, "Are the coordinates I gave you those years ago still in place?"

"Oh, yeah." Stan confirmed with a smile.

Ess then turned to Ar, Em, and Chrissy – their stunned, astonished, and bemused faces lit by the machine and reflected in the dark lenses of Ess's sunglasses. "I'll be right back."

"Where are you going?" Chrissy asked, but her inquiry went unheard by the supposedly "young" agent. It was very possible that he deliberately ignored her to avoid providing a direct answer. She watched him step onto one of the two glowing platforms and have his entire form converted into a ball of bluish light that was sucked directly into the portal within the triangle. Shortly after his departure, she turned to Stan and repeated her question in different context: "Where is he going?"

"He's just taking a short trip back home." Stan cryptically responded.

Chrissy frowned under the belief that the agent was from Earth. The sudden revelation that he was not made him even more of an enigma to her. "And just where _is_ his home?"

Stan laughed cleverly. "Oh, don't think you can get me to spill on my old friend's secrets, kid."

His reference to Ess as his _old_ friend urged Chrissy to ask the question that had been ringing in her mind since Stan mentioned how he and Ess last met in 1974: "How is it possible that you've known him for so many years? He's practically a 'kid' himself – younger than me…youngest of all of us, in fact!"

Her observation sparked hysterical laughter from Stan, confusing Chrissy and (to a greater extent) Ar and Em, who knew even less about Ess's supposed age. "How old _is_ he? Seriously?" Ar inquired.

"How old do you _think_ he is?" Stan reflected the question.

"Somewhere in his 20s, we imagined." Em said.

Stan could barely stifle another series of laughs, causing a few snorts to come out instead. "He's nowhere even close to _my_ age – and I'm a month away from turning 81!"

Chrissy became more agitated with the old man's teasing. "Then how old is he?"

"I'm over 8,000 years old."

They heard Ess's voice speak out, surprising them with his sudden reemergence and the answer to Chrissy question. He returned from his trip without making as much as a sound upon reentry. Noting how displeased he looked, Stan deduced, "Meetin' didn't go as planned, I take it."

"What happened?" Em asked.

Ess despairingly sighed. "She won't help."

"Where did you go? And who is 'she'?" Chrissy's questions were filled with such infuriation that she practically demanded Ess to answer them.

"It doesn't matter." Ess told her.

"It does for Sierra and Sienna!" Chrissy heatedly snapped.

Ess sighed again in the same manner as before. "I went to my people to request that they hold off Cthulhu long enough to buy us time to save the girls…but my request was denied. _She_ feels that I've abandoned her all those years I've been away…now she has abandoned _me_."

Sensing heartbreak in him, Chrissy calmed herself and questioned once more, "Who is she?"

"Her name is Kida, and she's the Queen of Atlantis." Ess confirmed. "I was once the king…and her husband."


End file.
